August Smart Lock Is Finally Ready For Sale, With A Little Help From Apple

When hardware startup August first let the world know about its so-called smart lock back in May 2013, the company thought it was only a few months away from having the product ready to ship. And in came more than 60,000 pre-orders. But August wasn't going to be ready for quite a while.

Today, a year and a half after the unveiling, the San Francisco startup is finally ready to start selling its smart lock for $249 and will be available at the
Apple Store or off the company's website.

The lock's sleek aluminum exterior was designed by co-founder Yves Béhar, who's famous for designing other products such as the Jawbone UP24. The lock works by operating the device through the Bluetooth low energy in your smartphone. And the iOS and Android app allows the owner of the August lock to instantly send virtual keys to anyone on their smartphone. You can give others three levels of access to your lock--always; reoccurring on certain times and days; and temporary keys for a limited timeframe. The lock also has the ability to automatically lock and unlock when you come and go.

What ultimately took August so long to get the lock ready to ship? That was mostly a matter of making sure its motor drive--the part that pushes the lock into the frame--was powerful enough for almost every door. Each door has its own unique friction and force that needs to applied to get a door locked.

"We had a product a year ago we felt pretty good about but realized we could do better," said Jason Johnson, CEO and co-founder of August, in an interview. "We could make this more powerful. It’s better to take our time and do it right. Reliability was our concern."

The August Smart Lock uses four AA batteries that are supposed to last a year before they need to be replaced.

August certainly isn't the first company to come out with a connected lock. There are other gadgets like Kwikset and UniKey's Kevo as well as Lockitron. August's advantage is that installation is meant to be easy and take only 10 minutes. The August Smart Lock fits over your existing door's deadbolt lock, so you don't need to totally replace your lock and install complex wiring like some other smart locks.

"They’re good at making full replacement locks," said Johnson about the competition. "We make a little robot that attaches to existing locks. That’s our unique approach."

As August starts selling its product, the company is benefiting from being in the good graces of Apple. Not only is August going to be sold in the Apple Store, August was named as one of the official partners of Apple's HomeKit, its wireless standard for how home devices connect in iOS that Apple announced at its developers conference in June this year. August is working out being HomeKit certified--but the certification standard is still in its early days. It's still going to take some work before anybody is ready for whatever Apple is planning in the smart home.

HomeKit could help solve one of August's biggest limitations--the fact that you can't remotely lock and unlock your door, which could be useful in many cases. Apple has promised some way to grant remote access in HomeKit, so once HomeKit is up and running, it's likely you'll also be able to operate your August lock while you're away from home.

Even though August is enjoying the opportunity to be a part of Apple's smart home plans in the early days, Johnson makes clear of his intent to work with as many smart home platforms as possible. August is already starting to work with learning thermostat-maker Nest's open API program, for example. Since August is able to track the individual profile of each person entering a house, August could tell Nest's thermostat to adjust the temperature based on that person's preferences.

At $249, the August Smart Lock is not a cheap smart home product. Who's going to buy a $249 lock, no matter how smart it is? With the slew of smart home products coming out onto the market every week, this is an ongoing question and concern in Silicon Valley. Many of these devices come with a number of wireless technologies, making them confusing for the regular consumer and difficult to get them to talk to each other. A number of hub companies--such as Revolv and SmartThings, which was recently acquired by Samsung--have emerged to try to solve this problem. But that's just another confusing step for most consumers to even bother to start buying these products.

“I don't think the consumer wants to buy a hub or home networking kits,” said August investor David Wu from Maveron. "They'll want to buy a single device that brings a magical experience or is an object of desire. Over time, they'll have enough devices that they'll want them to talk to each other.”

The August Smart Lock will likely be most useful for people with cleaners, nannies, dog walkers or other people who need regular yet mediated access to a home or apartment.

But August doesn't plan on being only a smart lock company. When I visited them at their office, the company made sure to put away any prototypes of other devices it's working on. For now, though, August is committed to getting the lock right.

As with any other hardware startup just starting out, August is still likely a long ways from being a strong business. The economics of a hardware company are much more challenging than being a software company.